The survey covers risk-based security metrics and evaluates the attitudes of 1,321 respondents (749 U.S. and 571 U.K.) from IT security, IT operations, IT risk management, business operations, compliance/internal audit and enterprise risk management.

Key findings from the survey include:

75 percent of respondents say metrics are ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to a risk-based security program

53 percent don’t believe or are unsure that the security metrics used in their organizations are properly aligned with business objectives

51 percent didn’t believe or are unsure that their organizations metrics adequately convey the effectiveness of security risk management efforts to senior executives

When asked, “Why don’t you create metrics that are well understood by senior executives?”:

59 percent said the information is too technical to be understood by non-technical management

48 percent said pressing issues take precedence

40 percent said they only communicate with executives when there is an actual security incident

35 percent said it takes too much time and resources to prepare and report metrics to senior executives

18 percent said senior executives are not interested in the information

Commenting on these results, Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, said, “Even though most organizations rely on metrics for operational improvement in IT, more than half of IT professionals appear to be concerned about their ability to use metrics to communicate effectively with senior executives about security.”

“These results correlate with the dozens of conversations we have been having with CISO’s across the globe,” said Rekha Shenoy, vice president of marketing and corporate development at Tripwire.

“CISO’s talk about the importance of leveraging metrics as a way to influence business leadership and build a risk management practice within their companies. Unfortunately, they struggle with the bigger challenge of producing meaningful metrics while those they use are rarely aligned with business goals.”